COVID-19 Highlights the Need for More Effective Wildlife Trade Legislation

Area of Science:

• Ecology and Public Health
• Conservation Biology
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Zoonotic diseases pose a significant threat to global health.
• Human activities, including habitat destruction and wildlife trade, increase the risk of zoonotic spillover.
• Current approaches are insufficient to prevent inevitable zoonosis-based epidemics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the inevitability of zoonotic epidemics without ecological and regulatory changes.
• To propose essential governmental actions for preventing future zoonoses.
• To emphasize the need for a revised human relationship with the natural world.

Main Methods:

• Literature review on zoonotic disease emergence.
• Analysis of factors contributing to wildlife-livestock-human interface risks.
• Policy analysis of current wildlife trade and habitat protection legislation.

Main Results:

• Zoonosis-based epidemics are unavoidable under current human-nature interactions.
• Effective legislation is lacking for wildlife trade and habitat protection.
• The wildlife-livestock-human interface remains a high-risk factor for disease transmission.

Conclusions:

• Revisiting our relationship with the natural world is imperative.
• Governments must enact robust legislation for wildlife trade and habitat conservation.
• Reducing the wildlife-livestock-human interface is critical for pandemic prevention.